Let There Be [Smart] Light...

It has been nearly half a year since I last posted, but work on Carstenbahn One continues!  Since purchasing TrainController I have been spending a lot of time learning the software and creating schedules for my trains.  I have also had to spend a considerable amount of time 'derail-proofing' my trains, as the steep grades and sharp curves are giving me trouble.  

But I've also been playing around with other layout features.  One in particular, lighting, has been on my list for a while.  In a few of the layout pictures I have shared you can see the track lighting and cans that I use to light the layout.  After playing around with the Philips Hue smart bulb technology I ended up buying a half-dozen smart bulbs, replacing the 'regular' lightbulbs in the fixtures above the layout.  Using the Philips Hue app on my phone, I am now able to change the color and brightness of the bulbs, either individually or as a group.  The result?  I can simulate all sorts of lighting 'scenes'.  

Here are a few examples:

I took the photos above with light streaming through the egress window so the colors are a little washed out, but you can imagine what I was going for- evening, morning, and night.  

I then used a third-party app called iConnectHue that allows macros (sequences) to be written using those different lighting 'scenes'.  The result?  I can now run a day-to-night-to-day simulation and trigger it on my cell phone.  I have a couple of 'versions' of this sequence, one that takes about two minutes, and another that takes about six minutes.  It all depends how long I want to stay in the dark 😉.

I went a little overboard, and now have smart bulbs in every light fixture of the basement.  Another macro I wrote will now fade out all the other lights in the basement before the nighttime sequence on the layout begins.

The next challenge will be to have the streetlights on the layout and lights in the buildings come on automatically as 1:32 day turns to 1:32 night...